


History Is Made at Night

by themusicofmysoul



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themusicofmysoul/pseuds/themusicofmysoul
Summary: To be an immortal amongst mortals is its own special brand of hell.  Humans have short memories, spanning a mere few decades, causing them to forget the horrors they've suffered, all caused by their own selfish pride.  It's a hell Sigyn had learned to live with, learned to endure from the sidelines as she watched on and on, humanity's mistakes all but a distant, half-remembered dream to the mortals of Midgard.She had sworn to never involve herself in their affairs, knowing only too well the price of unwanted meddling, but there was something different about this second "World War" and the dashing young man in that small Brooklyn dancehall.





	History Is Made at Night

**Author's Note:**

> This incredibly stupid fic was inspired by an idea a friend of mine had based on self-indulgent RP shenanigans years in the making. It may have more chapters? Maybe? I'm not sure.
> 
> If you are reading this, may good things be bestowed upon you throughout your life.

The lively, brassy tones of a jazz band filled the modest Brooklyn dancehall, the lights dimmed to comfortable glow as the haze of cigarette smoke settled over its patrons.  The place was packed, the air near stifling even as the chill of winter threatened to spill in through the constantly opening and closing doors.  Each new guest quickly shed their outer layers as they elbowed their way through the throng, most making a beeline for the bar, while others headed straight for the already crowded dance floor, their coats and scarves forgotten where they lay under the guard of a young boy in patchwork clothes by the entrance.

It was an exuberant, carefree atmosphere, filled with lighthearted laughter and off-key, drunken singing—a stark contrast to the recruitment posters pasted along the walls and behind the bar, old Uncle Sam pointing a demanding finger at the reader.

It was December of 1942 and the world was at war.  Again.

Sigyn looked over the sea of people with a cold, discerning eye, her lips pressed together in a thin line.  Most of the men were dressed in a uniform of some kind, whether it be Navy white or the olive drab of the Army, and any who had not come with a girl quickly found themselves with one on their arm.  It was a familiar scene, one that she had watched play out many times over her centuries here on Midgard, a last chance at revelry before too young boys were forced to face the inevitable hell that awaited them far from the comforts of home.

She could almost forgive their naiveté, almost get swept up in the overconfident enthusiasm that practically bled from every recruit in the room, if only the Great War had not ended merely twenty years earlier, and with it the lives of countless young men just like them.  

Sighing through her nose, Sigyn took a drink from her glass, the bitter, red liquid still unsatisfying after all this time.  Humans always spoke of their search for immortality, the desire to evade the cold hands of death for as long as physically possible.  If only they knew the curse that was being an immortal among mortals, to see their mistakes and shortcomings spelled out so clearly, and yet unable to make them change their course.  The patterns were there, always had been, and yet humanity as a whole refused to change, refused to look back on their history and see the terrible, blood soaked cycle they were trapped in.  She had hoped against all hope that the last war would have done it, that after the countless lives lost in the mud and trenches of Europe, after their sons and husbands had returned home permanently and grotesquely scarred, that they would have found it within themselves to change, to keep their future sons and husbands from ever having to suffer such a fate.

The recruitment posters hanging along the walls, colorful and patriotic in all of their red, white, and blue trappings, mocked her optimism, Uncle Sam pointing an accusatory finger at her.

 _You could have stopped this_ , he seemed to say.   _You could have saved these boys this fate._

“Syl!” A familiar, cheery voice rose above the music, jolting Sigyn from her somber reverie.  She sat up straight in her chair, searching the crowd until her eyes fell upon a petite young woman with long, dark hair and a dazzlingly white smile, her nose and cheeks red from the cold.  “Syl, you came!”

The corners of Sigyn’s mouth curved upward despite herself.  “Don’t act so surprised, Alice.”

Alice approached the table, her smile crumpling into a terrible scowl as a particularly large sailor blocked her path.  Sigyn didn’t even try to hide her laughter as her friend roughly shoved past him, the tiny brunette settling into the empty seat at the small, round table with an exaggerated groan.

“Rotten sailors,” she grumbled.  “They think they own the place just because they’re docked in the harbor.”

“At least the Marines are keeping clear away from here.”  Sigyn swirled the remainder of her drink around in her glass.  “They’re civil enough with the Navy boys, but the Army?  I’d rather not be caught in the middle of that brawl.”

Her friend sighed dramatically, propping her chin up in the palm of her hand.  “Aren’t we all fighting the same war?  Can’t they save all that macho-ness for the front?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”  Sigyn downed the last of her drink before placing the glass on the tabletop with an audible  _thunk_.

“So.” Alice sat up, smoothing out some non-existent wrinkles in her pale pink dress as she scanned the crowd.  “Did I miss anything good?  Has anyone asked you to dance yet?”

Sigyn scoffed.  “Do I look as if I’ve had a man of any sort on my arm tonight?”

“We’ll be changing that soon enough.”

“Alice,” Sigyn warned.

“What?  We can’t have you becoming a spinster.  I don’t know if my future husband will be okay with you living in our attic.”

Sigyn couldn’t help but laugh at that.  “Awfully presumptuous of you to assume any man would deny himself the chance to live with two beautiful women.”

“And risk having to share him with you?” Alice wagged her finger.  “Nuh-uh.  I know when I’m beat, and I know I don’t stand a chance against those bright green eyes of yours.”

“What makes you think I’d share?”  A teasing smile made its way onto Sigyn’s lips, followed shortly by a girlish giggle as her friend narrowed her eyes.

“This is why we need you out of the apartment and away from my prospects.”  

“Yes, yes.  Marry me off.  That’s the way.  Eliminate the competition.”

“Just like you taught me.”

Sigyn raised her empty glass in salute.  “Just like I taught you.”

“Oh, no, no, no.”  Alice leaned forward and snatched Sigyn’s glass out of her hand.  “That’s no way to make a toast.  You need a full glass and I need at least one drink in me.”

“Hey,” Sigyn pouted, “it’s not my fault you took your sweet time getting here.  I had to entertain myself somehow.”

“I can count at least a dozen other ways you could have entertained yourself until I got here.”  A smirk pulled at the corner of her friend’s mouth.  “Quite a few of them looking rather dashing, and with an officer’s rank sewn onto their shoulders to boot.”

Sigyn rolled her eyes, waving Alice in the direction of the bar.  “Just go get your drink so you can stop riding me and start riding something else.”

Alice grinned triumphantly as she stood, the sound of her chair scraping against the aged, wooden floor lost to the rapid plink of piano keys.  “So vulgar.  Almost sounds like you’re trying to get rid of me.  Got your sights on someone in particular?”

“Just  _go_ , you absolute witch,” Sigyn laughed.

With a suggestive arch of her brow, Alice turned on her heel to weave her way through the crowd, her small stature quickly lost in the sea of bodies as she made her way toward the bar.  Sigyn merely shook her head, letting her shoulders slump slightly as she leaned back in her seat, her fingers drumming out the music’s steady beat along the glossy, wooden tabletop.  It was times like this that she almost felt like she was home again, back in the gilded halls of Asgard among friends and family.  How many times had she attended a feast just like this?  The halls would echo with the laughter of the palace guards, their tankards filled with ale and easy smiles on their faces; music, vibrant and alluring as a siren’s song, would call to any who could hear it, begging them to join in with their fellows and dance the night away.  

If she just closed her eyes and let the sounds of joy and jubilation wash over her, she could almost pretend she was back there, among the loved ones she had forsaken in the name of her own freedom.  It was just enough to keep the creeping dread that threatened to overtake her at bay, to keep the small smile on her face from fading into the night like mist over the Hudson.

“Now, what’s a dame like you doing all alone in a place like this?”

Sigyn’s fingers paused in their constant, rhythmic tapping, her eyes flicking to the source of the smooth baritone cutting through the energetic blare of the trumpets and shattering the fantasy taking shape in her mind.  He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, dressed in the light brown and olive drab of a freshly pressed US Army dress uniform, the matching hat sitting slightly askew atop a dark head of short cropped hair, his sharp jawline smooth and clean shaven.  He swaggered toward her with all of the confidence of a Hollywood film star, a dashing, roguish smile fit for the silver screen painted upon his lips.

Not exactly the distraction she had been yearning for, but it would do.

A long rehearsed, polite smile slid into place as she nodded toward the bar.  “Depends on your definition of ‘alone,’ soldier boy.  My friend just ran to get us some drinks.”

“Is that so?”  He cocked an eyebrow, shoving his hands into his pockets as he glanced toward the bar.  “Would this friend be of the female or male variety?”

A short snicker stopped just short of falling from her lips.  Boy, he was laying it on thick.  “Female, if you really must know.  She should be back soon if you want to wait around.  I’m sure she’s just your type.”

“Ma’am, you wound me.”  He removed one of his hands from his pockets and placed it over his heart, staggering back a step for effect.  Sigyn had to fight the urge to roll her eyes.  “Here I am, askin’ after as fine a lady as you, and you try to push me off onto some other broad.”

“I’m just looking out for our brave soldiers, is all,” she said, sarcasm dripping from every word.  “I couldn’t live with myself if you went off to the front without being informed of all your options.”

He chuckled, to her surprise, shaking his head as an amused smile lit up his already handsome face.  “The front’s a long way off for me, ma’am.  I still got quite a bit of training to go through before I get my chance to kill some krauts.”

“Really?”  Sigyn eyed the two chevrons sewn into the shoulder of his uniform.  A man of rank.  Not high ranking, by any means, but no private either.

“Really.”  He stepped closer to the table, his full lips tilting upward in a self-assured smirk.  “Turns out I’m a helluva—’scuse me—heck of a shot, and they’ve got me going for some additional training to further develop that natural talent.  I’ve even got it on good authority that I’ll make it to sergeant before I’m shipped out.”

“So what does that make you now, then?”  Sigyn knew full well what those two chevrons signified, but she wanted to see if he would attempt to stretch the truth.  “Should I be standing at attention with a nice, crisp salute?”

The man laughed a deep, throaty laugh, the sound pleasant enough to send an unexpected thrill up Sigyn’s spine.  “Not at all, ma’am.  Corporal James Buchanan Barnes, US Army, at your service.”  He finished the declaration with a loose salute and an irritatingly charming wink.

“Corporal Barnes, then.” Sigyn nodded.

“James, please, ma’am.  Only the COs call me that.”

“Of course.  It’s a pleasure to meet you, James.”

“The pleasure is all mine, miss…?”

“Sylvia,” Sigyn said easily, the lie rolling off her tongue without so much as a moment’s pause.  “Sylvia Frey.”

“Miss Frey it is, then,” he said with a nod, touching the brim of his hat in an almost gentlemanly manner.

She crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair, allowing herself a moment to look him over.  He really looked like he had stepped right out of a recruitment poster—the ideal American soldier, handsome and patriotic to a fault, the fantasy every man in this dancehall hoped to embody when they signed their lives away to the armed forces.

Truly, the Army would probably be better off using the young corporal to sell war bonds.  His movie star good looks were wasted on the European theater.  The housewives of America would be helpless to resist his pleas for their assistance, among various other requests.

Instead, he was just another piece of canon fodder for them to throw at the German front lines.

“Well, James,” Sigyn began, sitting up slightly to adjust the skirt of her midnight blue dress, a bizarre chill skittering over her skin.  “Did you just saunter on over to chat me up?  Because I’d much rather get the nasty business of turning you down over with quickly.”

The corners of his bright blue eyes crinkled with mirth, reminding Sigyn of someone she had long since tried to forget.  “I think you should hear me out first, Miss Frey.”

“And why, exactly, should I do that?” She leaned forward in her seat, propping her chin up in the palm of her hand.  The picture of placating attentiveness.

“C’mon, ma’am, you wouldn’t send a soldier off to war without honoring his last wish, would you?”

“I thought you were a long way from the front, soldier boy?”

“That may be true,” he said, coming around to lean against the back of the chair Alice had vacated.  “But who’s to say I’ll get another chance at a dance with a dame like you before then?”

“A dance?” Sigyn scoffed, her tone incredulous.  “That’s your last wish before going off to face the Nazi war machine?”

“I figured I’d cast a low bid to start.”  He shrugged a single broad shoulder.  “The night’s young, after all.”

Sigyn cleared her throat.  He certainly had high hopes for his evening.  “Tell me, James, there are a whole lot of soldiers in this joint just waiting to sweep a girl out onto the dance floor, what makes you so special?”

“Well, Miss Frey,” he said, leaning forward so his forearms rested atop the empty chair beside her.  “Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I happen to be the best lookin’ guy in here.  Don’t think you could do much better than the likes of me.”

Sigyn didn’t even bother to resist the urge to roll her eyes this time.

“I’m also a pretty good dancer, if I do say so myself,” James added, his head cocked slightly to the side, his brow raised suggestively.  “I’m sure I got a move or two you’d like.”

She quirked an eyebrow.  He had  _very_  high hopes for his evening.  “Someone thinks mighty high of himself.”

“I assure you it’s with good reason, ma’am,” he said, not an ounce of humility in his voice.  “And it would be a damn shame to let my considerable talents go to waste, don’t you think?”

“ _Oof_ ,” Sigyn huffed, almost impressed by his unfaltering ego.  She pitied the women of Midgard.  She doubted many escaped his implacable charm with their skirts intact.  “Easy there, soldier boy.  If your head gets any bigger, the Germans are gonna have an easy target.”

“Those krauts will need all the handouts they can get by the time I get over there,” he said, all the bravado and bluster of inexperience.  “Besides, it’d be a shame if the war was won by a lowly sergeant, don’tcha think?  Gotta let the brass have their time to shine.”

That easy mask of playful indifference faltered, the sharp claws of trepidation caressing the very edge of her mind.  Arrogance was the scourge of the US military, far more lethal than any bomb or gun ever created by human hands, and more contagious than the clap among new recruits.  They all thought they were destined to be war heroes, that the war would be little more than a prolonged camping trip in the faraway forests of Europe.  Their heads were filled with patriotic nonsense, that the war would be over in a matter of months now that the United States was entering the fray.  None of them knew the ferocity with which the enemy would fight to push them back, to hold their ground in their long entrenched fox holes and bunkers.

None of them knew the horrors their fellow man was capable of, including this infuriatingly endearing man with a debonair smile.

“C’mon, Miss Frey,” James tried again, just the slightest pleading edge to his voice.  “Don’t make me beg.  I’d get on my knees, but there are probably some folks in this fine establishment who might get the wrong idea.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?”  Sigyn fought to slide that cool mask back into place, her chest tight with a disturbingly keen sense of unease.  “All right, all right,” she sighed, her voice all forced cheer and modest reluctance.  “Don’t go makin’ a scene, Corporal Barnes.  I’d hate for you to dirty that brand new uniform of yours already.”

He chuckled softly to himself, pushing off of the back of the chair to stand up straight.  “You’re too kind, ma’am.  Truly.  A testament to all that we’re fighting for over there.”

A rather unladylike snort erupted from Sigyn as she looked up at him.  She tried to ignore Uncle Sam’s accusatory finger pointing at her from the poster hanging just behind James’ head, that stern, withered gaze a constant reminder of her complacency.  “You’d better be everything you advertised, soldier boy.”

He held out his hand to her, bending slightly at the waist as an impish, crooked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.  “Everything and more, doll.”

With a long-suffering sigh and a minute shake of her head, Sigyn slid her hand into his, only too aware of the gentle scrape of hardened calluses against her skin as the winsome soldier eagerly pulled her to her feet, a mischievous wink her only warning before he tugged her out onto the dance floor.


End file.
